Tag Archives: emissions

A report from Greenpeace suggests the burning of Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands in order to build oil plantations is releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Every year at least 1.8 billion tons of emissions are released by this practice and this amounts for 4% of global emissions. “Trade in palm oil by some of the world’s food giants and commodity traders is helping to detonate a climate bomb in Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands,” says the report. Just alone in the province of Sumatra some 3 million hectares of forest are set to be slashed and burned over the next decade. The burning of Sumatra’s peatlands which stores 14.6 billion tons of carbon would result in the release of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to a year’s total around the globe!

We inhabit a global economy in which the devil of oil driven cars and industries is leading the planet toward incredible problems during the coming decades. Indonesia is not going to cease the burn and slash policy which provides wealth to its nation until the world shifts from an oil driven economy toward one in which diverse energy resources become common.

A team of researchers led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen discovered that biofuels emit up to 70% more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. They calculated emissions released by the growth or burning of such crops as maize and sugar cane to produce biofuels releases twice as much nitrous oxide(N20) as previously thought. They estimate 3%-5% of nitrogen in fertilizer is converted and emitted rather than previously thought 2%. Professor Keith Smith of the University of Edinburgh commented: “One wants rational decisions rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon because superficially something appears to reduce emissions.”There is also the factor as corn is turned into fuel prices rise causing poor people to suffer. We have to continue investigating ways to reduce greenhouse emissions without using biofuels.